SL18B starts tomorow ! thursday 17 june 2021

[rasterscan]

Eighteen years old and still truckin' on. Well done SL ! See ya there sl'ers ! 

[811Lord]

[Rowan Amore]

Will there be cake?

[Lucia Nightfire]

It will be the same thing as it is every year. Art exhibits, art exhibits everywhere!

[arabellajones]

On 6/16/2021 at 4:50 PM, Lucia Nightfire said:

It will be the same thing as it is every year. Art exhibits, art exhibits everywhere!

One day, somebody will discover the signpost.

Sorry, but I am a bit grumpy. Many of the exhibit sites are difficult to identify. And my experience of the pod tours was mixed, maybe not entirely the fault of Moles and exhibit builders, but but by the time enough had loaded to see what a place was, it always seemed to be a long way behind the pod.

On what info I have about my connection, it wasn't maxed out. And I hear plenty of horror stories about internet connections in the USA.

OK, I don't recognise many of the performer and DJ names, but the Lindens seem to have provided zero information in their event calendars. I have to go digging through the in-game Search, and then get directed to some external web page.  I'll admit I am old enough that my musical tastes may be from long before SL was dreamt of, because that's when I grew up, but whatever my tastes, it seems broken that Linden Lab and SL18B organisers have done so little promotion. I feels as though I am doing their work.

It's a similar problem with the Shop and Hop. There's just a huge list of landmarks and store names. With so many different mesh bodies in use, each needing specific, matching, clothes, even the many multi-body packs available don't really compensate. And there's a lot of other goods to sell, but how to find them? I tried the Marketplace site. Not every Shop and Hop merchant I tried searching for is there.

Timezone differences are their own problem, but at least I am awake at times when these events are quiet. But it means that so much depends on what's visible, scenery and not other residents using chat.

[Anna Nova]

I went, I saw, I went back to bed.  Nothing greatly inspiring there then.

Happy Birthday SL.

[Jaylinbridges]

I went during the slow hours, 3am SLT, and texture rezzing was still miserable.  No surprise, it can be miserable on my own region.  Every time there was a sign that I wanted to read, it was blurry for minutes.  Everything around the sign was rezzed in. What is it about textures that the few you really want to see clearly, are the last to rezz?  

There seemed to be a LOT of forests with mushrooms and crystals.  No displays.  Once I have seen one mushroom crystal forest, I am not that excited about wandering through six more. 

I took the pod tour, the boats, the balloons.  Missed most of what was on the tour because the damn signs would stay fuzzy.  I suppose if you Stand Up and get off the pod at every exhibit, and wander around, you would see the displays.  But figuring out what was worth going back to check out from the tour was difficult.  I finally just walked and flew around instead.  

I only found one free gift region this year.  I think they started one gift region last year.   Most of the gift tables were nearly empty too.  Unless people are just behind in placing the gifts for SL18B, I would say there are about 1/2 as many this year.  Not that I go there for the gifts, as they are mostly promotions for products and groups.  But still it seems exhibitors and their gifts are down this year. The shopNHop stores still have a gift or small token sometimes. I didn't see a HUNT HUD at the main exhibits either.  Another casualty?   Last year I recall LL had free avatars and outfits as a gift in the reception area.  The incoming reception area seemed to be bare this year, just walls and places to sit.

The Live DJ and entertainer stage was OK and they have some good entertainers during the week, and four regions to listen in around the stage.  But the DJ's and entertainers seemed to be having a lot of rezz problems.  It was laggy of course with 50 in the auditorium. My frame rate was about 6 fps w/ ALM and shadows Off, and draw distance at 36.  Using more regions to improve capacity did not stop the avatar lag because the avatars were all in range.  I had to cut my max avatars setting to 10.  I usually have it at 40 at my club, and get 25 fps w/ 30 avatars in range. 

The SL History Museum was the same as last year, with 2021 added.  Not sure what 2021 will be known for yet.  

 

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Lucia Nightfire]

7 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

What is it about textures that the few you really want to see clearly, are the last to rezz?

I see this all the time with the World Map waiting to show the image for the region I'm in last and with animated textures, loading everything within 30m of me first then loading the animated texture 1m in front of my camera last.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Lucia Nightfire

[Sid Nagy]

Well, we still ain't at the waiting times Sansar had, so we still can add some more texture layers, lighting settings, avatar clothing and tatoo layers.
Yay.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Sid Nagy

[Polenth Yue]

I didn't have issues at the exhibits with draw distance at 32m. I've seen a range of stuff so far and I've done about two regions. I've done several hunts, an obstacle course, been in history and geography exhibits, looked at art and got thrown across a region attempting surfing (maybe not the best activity in a tiny space).

The gift area didn't work so well this year, because exhibitors couldn't place gifts until after it opened. I'd have liked the gift region sorted out so exhibitors could get that set up along with exhibits. That said, I had no gifts to put there. I did a hunt for my main exhibit, a shop and hop gift, and a last minute gift for a second exhibit (I was one of the emergency space fillers). I don't have any gifts left to put out at the main area.

[Garnet Psaltery]

I got round all the regions today, which I don't do every year.  I've never seen so many parklands; if you need to stop and rest there's plenty of choice but it was hard to tell at times whether they were simply parks or actual builds.  I enjoyed the little hunt by @Polenth Yue and the 'Bears Gone Wild' exhibit from @Randy Firebrand.  I admit I'm struggling to remember much else. 

[Desiree Moonwinder]

I always like the Tapestry of Time exhibit on SL's history.  I remember the days before flexiprims, before sculpties, before megaprims, etc.  

[Desiree Moonwinder]

Can anyone find the main SL18B landing point mentioned in the Featured News Blog or the SL18B destination guide? 

I think they contracted the Web Page work to someone that doesn't come inworld much.  There are two landing points with live greeters, but there is no way to find them.  

Once you get to SL10B, pull up your world map (control M) and click where you see the most green dots (avatars), and teleport there.

I made it my mission to find the main landing point and eventually found it, but by then, I had already been given the event-group and event-notecard by talking with other avatars.

It's a great SL10B; I just wish the info in the event Notecard had been in the Featured News blog.

 

https://secondlife.com/destinations/sl18b

 

 

[LibGwen]

I tour it all and play with most of it, and it takes me the whole two and a half weeks.

I don't seem to have the difficulties people have been complaining about despite a supposedly below average computer, but then by necessity I'm accustomed to periodic re-logs, avoiding texture cache overruns and recognizing when I'm in danger of a viewer crash.  I do the Birthday with a 56m draw distance and one of the system avatars I change into specifically for these big events.

[Desiree Moonwinder]

Ah, I set a long draw distance and teleport from SIM to SIM to just sit and cache the SIMs, and then adjust to shorter draw distances to explore.  Lag isn't really a problem once I get the SIM cached as long as I set a low threshold for "imposter avatars."